Build vNext Preview Available in Visual Studio Online

Microsoft's revamp of its Build framework, which will be incorporated into the next versions of Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio 2015, is now available in public preview. It was released as part of a number of new improvements in the Visual Studio Sprint 82 that was released today, according to a blog post from Microsoft's Brian Harry.

The new Build automation system adds several features: Hosted queue access, which allows builds to run in a Microsoft Azure virtual machine; support for projects on private and public Git repositories; ability to display project status on GitHub or a project Web site.

Improvements include: drill down to the Task level of any backlog detail; toggle detail levels through a Parent filter; reorder and "reparent" detail views via drag/drop; toggle opt-ins for team backlog levels; updates to process templates with new fields, as well as an Epic work item type that allows support for the Scaled Agile Framework.

Kanban boards improvements include editable custom fields, collapsible first and last columns, and first-column paging. Related to that, Task boards now have editable custom fields, and support for tags on cards.

There are also a number of Git improvements. For one, policies can be set on builds to improve code quality. Thresholds for a minimum number of reviewers can also be set on code reviews. There's now also OAuth support that allows Git repositories to be supported on Visual Studio Online. Finally, Git push and pull requests can be filtered on group membership.

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